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Peter Gammons Thinks Sox Still Have A Chance

It might have been worse in 2004. At that point it was 12 months after the Aaron Boone homer, the Yankees were up 3-0 after a horrendous 19-8 loss in Game 3, and before the fourth game Kevin Millar did his rounds.

“They’d better not let us back in,” Millar told anyone who would listen. “If we win tonight, we have Pedro [Martinez] going in Game 5, [Curt] Schill[ing] in six, and if we get to a seventh game … anything could happen.”

That’s why athletes aren’t talk-show callers. They think that way.

Walking down Brookline Avenue outside Fenway Park on Tuesday night, one Red Sox player said virtually the same thing. “If there’s anyone who can turn this series around, it’s The Magic Man [Daisuke Matsuzaka],” the player said. He’s right, because Matsuzaka cranked out a two-seamer in Game 1 of the ALCS that made him look like the Japanese Greg Maddux.

“Get us to a seventh game with Jon Lester,” the player said, “and we’ll see what happens.”

Look, in games started by Josh Beckett, Lester and Tim Wakefield, the Rays scored 31 runs. They bashed Boston starters for 18 runs and eight homers in 12 2/3 innings. The difference in athleticism looked like USC vs. Harvard.

No one can get them messed up better than Daisuke,” said the Red Sox player. “If that happens, we can still win.”

The player isn’t a first-time caller. He knows what has, and what can, happen. Even if he spent the better part of the day watching what may be the fastest outfield in history — Carl Crawford, B.J. Upton and Fernando Perez — the player knows that in Fenway and Yankee Stadium, the ghosts come out in the worst of times.